


2. hypothermia

by mini_marmoran (mini_cutie)



Series: Voltron Whump Week 2017 [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Orphan Lance (Voltron), but really it depends on how u see it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 13:15:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11852346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mini_cutie/pseuds/mini_marmoran
Summary: 10-year-old Lance has enough of his newest foster home so he runs away. Unfortunately, he decides to do this during Winter.





	2. hypothermia

**Author's Note:**

> isn't beta-ed at the moment but it will be changed once it is

Lance didn’t expect the snow that came. One second the skies were clear, the next they were cloudy and snow fluttered to the ground. Today had felt like a good weather kind of day, and though it was chilly, it hadn’t felt that cold.

The snow didn’t flutter for long, either. The more he walked, the harder the snow fell. His eyes were trained down and he watched as the snow steadily accumulated.

Still, Lance continued cautiously down the sidewalk, passing shops and people as he went. Thankfully, people didn’t find a poorly dressed ten-year-old suspicious, even when he was by himself. He did get a few concerned looks but nobody stopped him.

He shook his head to get rid of the snow in his hair, eyes scanning his surroundings.

Lance was far enough from home that he didn’t recognize the buildings around him. The stores and the road signs were all unfamiliar. He found himself wondering if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

It was a good thing, he supposed. He knew the neighbourhood he had lived in well. He was surely far away from that horrible foster family if he couldn’t recognize any landmarks here.

Lance couldn’t even tell where he had come from. Had he crossed the street to get where he was now or did he turn a corner first? He honestly couldn’t remember. Everything here was new and the last thing on his mind was keeping track of where he was going. He was so lost that he wouldn’t know how to go back to where he started.

His chest constricted at that idea.

He knew being lost was a good thing too. Lance didn’t trust himself when it came down to it. Given the opportunity, he was sure that he would scurry back home. Not because it was the right thing to do but because he was scared. Running away was going to get him punished and the thought of being punished made his stomach flip.

It sounded irrational, even to him. That terrible foster father couldn’t punish Lance if he couldn’t get his hands on Lance. Still, the thought of it made him sick. His mind spun with calculations. If he trekked back now, could he arrive before anyone noticed he had left?

No, Lance couldn’t think like that. He had to force himself to do this. It felt wrong but it was right.

Worrying about punishments shouldn’t be his first priority anyway. The snow was much worse now than it was before. Lance needed to find somewhere to stay where the cold didn’t nip at his cheeks. Somewhere he could be warm.

He didn’t think he could go into any of the stores. He was old enough to know that you shouldn’t go into stores when you weren’t going to buy anything. It was rude and being rude was the last thing Lance wanted to do.

He briefly wondered why he cared more about manners than he did his own life before he pushed the thought aside. He wasn’t going to die from being a little cold.

Without pausing, his chilly fingers reached into his back pocket. He managed to fish out a ratty blue coin purse shaped like the head of a lioness. 

Lance fumbled a little but managed to unzip it and peer inside. There was a wad of dollar bills and then a mixture of different coins, mostly quarters and dimes.

He often got money from various places though mostly neighbours when he was doing them favours. He used to have much more than he had now and he had been planning on saving it up for his big escape. Sadly, staving off his hunger took precedence.

The most recent foster family he had stayed with only fed him one meal a day. He couldn’t blame them. They were taking care of so many other foster kids that they probably couldn’t afford to feed them more than that.

Lance had once quietly suggested that the foster parents could foster a significantly less amount of children—since thirteen seemed to be too much—or maybe feed their own family less. He got backhanded for that.

It was understandable. He crossed some sort of line. At least the experience taught him to keep his ‘rude’ comments in his head because the closer to the truth they were the harder he got hit.

Then again, he got hit regardless of how much he kept to himself.

Lance distracts himself from his own upsetting memory by counting the money in his coin purse. He knew by heart how much money there was. A part of him felt like, maybe, if he counted it all again, there would magically be more.

All in all, it was a little over 7 dollars. It hadn’t increased any, of course. Lance was stupid for thinking it would. Either way, he couldn’t buy anything significant with that.

So, stores were crossed off the list of places he could stay.

The only friend Lance had was Hunk. The two of them became fast friends when Lance defended Hunk from being bullied at school. It didn’t go smoothly, though. Lance ended up receiving the hits that he protected Hunk from.

Lance didn’t regret it. Hunk was Lance’s entire support system. Without him, Lance wouldn’t have survived this recent foster home. Hunk fed him when Lance really couldn’t find anywhere else to get food, sheltered him during bad nights, and so much more.

He liked to think that he supported Hunk too. As much as a 10-year-old could support another 10-year-old anyway. Lance kept Hunk out of danger and went with him everywhere. The two were attached at the hip. The only times they weren’t was when Lance went back home to that foster house.

Hunk, however, lived right across from where Lance had lived. It really wouldn’t be running away if he went there. In fact, that was probably the first place the foster people would look.

He continued his trek, brain still thinking up of possible places he could hide away. As he trudged along, snow buffeting against him, he spotted a little alleyway.

The walls were brick and at the very end of the alleyway was a dumpster. Other than that, the alleyway seemed clean enough. It also had two doors, both probably leading into the two respective stores on either side of the alley. The building with the farthest door stood taller than the other, effectively shielding a large portion of the alley from the snow.

Lance debated a little before scurrying in. This was much better than walking with snow hitting him in every single direction. If either one of the doors opened, he could probably just make up a lie on the spot anyway.

He placed his trash bag full of his things on the ground against the wall before he sat on top of it. The trash bag could get dirty for all he cared but the jeans he wore couldn’t.

He had gotten it a couple of foster homes ago, but back then, it was baggy for him. Now, Lance  had grown into it and it was really the only pair of jeans he owned.

The foster home he just ran from barely bought him food, much less new clothes, so he learned to sew and take care of his things. His sewing skills were noticeable from all of the patches on his jeans and the rips he had fixed.

Of course, his repairs weren’t perfect. Lance would’ve preferred brand new jeans or even ones that were lightly used. His jeans, on the other hand, were the exact opposite of what he preferred. That wasn’t his fault. The damages to his jeans and most of his clothes came from the other foster kids and their rough housing.

He couldn’t bring himself to blame them for how they acted, though. A lot of the kids in the foster system weren’t exactly treated the best and they tended to act out because of that. Lance knew this from first-hand experience.

He used to get angry so easily and it made him snap at other people. It took him a little while to realise that most of the people he got angry with weren’t at fault. It was all of the bad foster parents, not the kids themselves. Monkey see, monkey do, he supposed.

Besides, his repairs weren’t great but they were good enough. The jeans didn’t exactly warm his legs up and the poor stitching didn’t help but it was better than nothing.

Instead of thinking about that, he curled into himself, breathing out a soft sigh that turned into vapor as soon as it left his lips. At least the breath that escaped him warmed him a little bit when it fanned out against his cheeks and over his knees.

The inhale Lance took after didn’t. It reminded him of after he brushed his teeth, but this stung much more as it travelled to his lungs.

Bringing his hands up, he blew into them before flexing his fingers a little. Lance had never once owned a pair of gloves in his entire life, but at that moment, he wished for them more than ever.

It wasn’t just his hands. His feet were almost numb and his socks were soaked through. The cold bit at his toes every single time he would move or apply pressure. It didn’t hurt that much, though, and he could thank the loss of feeling in his extremities for that.

Lance really underestimated how cold it would be today, flurry and all. It was stupid of him to assume he could easily survive based on his experiences walking to and from school in similar conditions.

He supposed he also expected it to be something like the nights where the houses he’d lived in didn’t have heating. The cold at that moment felt nothing like the cold nights back then. At least in the houses, he had a blanket. Sometimes the amount of other children in the room even amassed enough heat to make the nights a little warmer.

A yawn tore its way out of Lance’s mouth, distracting him from his thoughts. His eyes watered in response and the wind from the opening of the alleyway made it even worse.

Lance always did get really sleepy when he was cold. The alleyway, however, was a poor place to sleep. If people found him as he slept, they would call the cops on him. He’d be escorted back to the foster home in a police car. The stupid foster parents would punish him twice over for that.

On the other hand, Lance was a light sleeper. He could probably wake up fast enough to easily slip past a person if they stood at the opening of the alleyway. He’s done it several times before, especially with foster fathers that weren’t kind.

They’d tower in the doorway of where he slept, usually with some sort of angry expression. In those moments, Lance felt grateful for his smaller stature because they always seemed to leave a gap right under their arms. He always got away.

The thought made Lance relax—as much as he could in this weather anyway. The cold made his body tense, and his entire frame shook every once and awhile.

By now, his hands are tucked under his armpits and his knees pulled as close as he could to his chest. The position wasn’t the most comfortable one he’s been in, but he’s still been in worse.

For example, there was that one time where he hid in a cupboard. The cupboard was entirely empty save for the pipes of the kitchen sink above him. It wasn’t made to hold an entire 8-year-old child and all of his things, but still, he hid. He had to or his foster father at the time would’ve stabbed him with a kitchen knife.

Then, after that, there was the time he hid in the lowest shelf of a bookcase. Although, at that time, his life wasn’t exactly in peril. Three of the foster kids he was staying with were looking for him. They wanted to take Lance’s money after hearing about how much he had.

Lance was never one to confront people if he could avoid it but he also couldn’t give them the money. He earned every dollar fair and square by mowing Hunk’s lawn and doing other small chores whenever he could. Hunk helped him, of course, and Lance didn’t really want to ask for a payment but Hunk’s moms insisted. Lance saved up all of that money to buy Hunk a birthday ukulele. So, Lance hid.

Both of those situations and a countless other more were definitely worse than the situation he was in now.

The longer he sat in the alleyway, thinking about these memories he had, the sleepier he grew. His eyelids got heavier and heavier. The numbness in his body only seemed to lull him further.

 _Why not sleep?_ Lance found himself thinking. He felt sleepy and it wasn’t like there was anything he had to worry about. His things weren’t going to get stolen as he slept because he was perched right on top of them. Plus, why would anyone attempt to steal a trash bag?

He thought that question was funny. He’d always hated the fact that he didn’t have a suitcase. From foster home to foster home, he always carried his things in a trash bag. It wasn’t just him, either. All of the kids who weren’t lucky enough to have their own bag got a trash bag. It was like the system was trying to tell them their things were trash. That was what Lance joked, anyway.

Travelling with his things in a trash bag was not ideal. Being forced to keep his things in a trash bag at all times because there was no place for his things was even worse. Now, though, at that moment, he thought it was ironic that he was thankful for his trash bag.

As he pondered over his thoughts, his eyes fluttered, darkness edging into his vision.

He just needed a small nap. Just a tiny little nap and then, if Lance was lucky, the snow would be gone by then. 


End file.
